The Great Indian Poll Tamasha: Is India in safe hands?

Every five years, the great Indian democracy girds up its loins to prepare itself for what could be termed as a months long mudslinging, expensive, ludicrous activity called general elections, where a handful of self-appointed leaders with loads of spare money come together to woo the hapless people of India.

For some people, it is just any other day and for some, it adds one more holiday to their thank-god-it-happened list of holidays. Many of us consider it as an utter waste of time and money. Many of us ask why not leave the things as they are? What difference is the new government going to make? Why waste so much money on such a futile exercise?

Now this begs the question, why have we grown so disenchanted with elections? What has made general elections lose their importance in the eyes of Indian people?

Since 1952, we have gone through 15 such elections with the level of dirty politics and expenditure going up with each one of them, and the age-old issues remaining as is. We still seem to be grappling with poverty, unemployment, corruption, illiteracy to name a few. The very purpose of elections gets defeated when we see people with tainted records and little education come to power. It just gives them one another avenue to amass unprecedented wealth, which is nothing but the taxpayer’s money.

It is a general feeling among the masses that aspiring politicians show up at their doors only when campaigning for election, asking or rather begging for votes, after which they could only be seen in flashy government vehicles carrying the coveted red lights with hordes of other vehicles. All the promises and assurances are put on the backburner and all they are really concerned about then is amassing wealth.

After elections are announced and before the model code of conduct comes into play, electoral candidates set out in their vehicles carrying flashy slogans to prey i.e. to woo people. Many of them will carry hordes of loudspeakers playing long-forgotten patriotic songs in a bid to blackmail us emotionally. This has to be the only time, besides 15 August and 26 January, when we get to hear them. They will speak about the martyrs and freedom fighters as if they were their ancestors.

The other reason we see such a lackluster response to polling is the lack of choices. Most of the time, it is choosing between the devil and the deep sea. A lot of them are under the impression that to be a politician and to win election, all they need is money and political affiliation of some sort, which is true to a certain extent given the kind of people we see at the helms. Education, character, morality is the least considered attributes. The fact that people like these come to power bears a testimony to the fact that money can buy everything.

Many a times, one comes across politicians who are accused of crimes as severe as rape and murder, but remain unscathed because the law of India considers a person innocent until he is proven guilty by the court of law. Now, given the pace at which Indian judiciary works, they can be rest assured that they will never face conviction in their lifetime.

If this all was not enough, they indulge in all kinds of illegal and prohibited activities during polling to get the mandate. Poll rigging, neutral or negative voting, money induced voting are some of the ways they employ to get their goals met.

Education still remains to be an attribute which is not given due importance. With the world fast becoming a global village, politics and administration is not confined to running a country, but to make it strong enough, internally and externally, to keep up with the changing world order. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that people’s representative are educated and possess specialized knowledge, which seems to be a fairly uncommon thing with politicians, especially at the state and local levels.

So why is it that even after knowing all this, we are so indifferent? But, what else can we do? It is an irony that we get to elect people but do not get to choose who stands in the elections. The day we are endued with this power, we will have better politicians, better government, and a stronger country. Electoral reforms are long overdue in the state of India, and a major overhaul of the election process is called for. Until then, we will see the same apathy and the same state of things going on.